Chapter 119: 93. Another Little Hike

"Hey there's the ski resort," Melanie pointed out on the right. "How far are we from the coordinates?"

We were only just past the resort as Paige started to slow down and signal a left-hand turn.

Meanwhile Brooke replied, "The target is less than two thousand meters away. We're almost there."

She had her old-fashioned GPS in her hand, she'd already set a mark with the coordinates she got in those strange texts. Now the old GPS was counting down the distance and pointing the direction to the exact location we were heading for.

Paige made the turn and we started heading north, but she kept the speed down since the road was a bit slippery. Plus it had some twists and turns as it sort of wound around a local river for a little bit, before straightening out again.

It was only a minute or so later that we were slowing down again as the road had another big twist in it, and that's where we pulled off onto the shoulder and parked.

"This is it," Brooke announced. She pointed more or less to the west, "Our destination is three hundred and seventy-one meters in that direction."

Paige commented, "It's hilly and snowy, it's probably going to be slippery underfoot. Let's all be careful, stick together, and everyone be careful ok?"

We were all dressed appropriately, more or less. Melanie was in her usual outfit, blue jeans and a black leather jacket, with her black combat-style boots on her feet. Cerys was about the same, she was wearing jeans, a jean jacket, and some beige work boots. Both werewolfs had hoodies on under their jackets, but neither bothered with hats or gloves.

Me and Nina both had warm fleece leggings and winter boots, I had a winter jacket over my hoodie while my little sister wore a winter coat. I even remembered to bring gloves, while Nina had mitts. Kaylee was dressed up properly with her big parka and everything, while Brooke and Paige were probably the most prepared. They looked ready for a winter hike, with warm pants, hiking boots, warm jackets, hats, and gloves.

As we all emerged from the minivan the two athletic girls also got out a couple old-school compasses, and a few of us had our phones out with either GPS apps or compass apps going.

"So what all's around here?" Melanie asked. "You said this was a nature reserve?"

Brooke nodded, "Everything west of the road here is part of a provincial nature reserve. The east side of the road is private property. It's all wooded right here, but satellite photos show some clearings, there's some houses here and there."

"There's actually a couple buildings on the nature reserve side too," Paige added. "And there's a network of hiking trails, but the target isn't close enough to them to be useful to us? If it was I'd have parked at a trailhead and we could have hiked in that way. But it's far enough from the trails and near enough to the road here, this was the better option."

Nina asked, "Why are there houses in a nature reserve?"

Our club leader shrugged, "No idea. Either the houses were there first, maybe old homesteads or something, and the reserve was created around them? Or maybe it's some deal with the government. There's a few places like that, where people rent some land from the province and build a cottage or house on it."

At that point we all got moving. We set out across the road then into the woods in a little gap in the trees. Despite it being winter the visibility wasn't great, since more than half of the trees were pines or cedars or some other kind of evergreens. And the hilly terrain reminded me of Monora Forest.

Brooke and Paige took the lead this time, since Brooke had the GPS with the coordinates. Then the two wolfgirls followed, while me and Kaylee and Nina took up the rear. And none of us were surprised when Melanie shifted to her wolfgirl form, literally the instant we were out of sight from the road.

"I can't wait till I can do that too," Cerys pouted. "I want my cute wolfy ears and tail!"

The older werewolf gave her girlfriend a smile as she responded, "It's only a matter of time. You're already doing amazing, cutie."

Nina asked, "What's involved? Isn't it just like shifting to a wolf, but only partway?"

Melanie explained, "It's a little more complicated than that. It's basically when your human side and wolf side are properly balanced and you fully embrace both sides of yourself? Then this becomes the most natural form? I only look human most of the time to blend in, but I think most werewolfs would rather stay in this sort of form all the time, if they could get away with it."

We'd only gone about twenty meters into the woods when the ground sloped steeply downwards, and we all carefully made our way into what felt like a ravine. The snow definitely wasn't helping, it was only ankle-deep at the start but by the time we got to the bottom it was more like knee-deep.

"Maybe we should have waited until after the thaw," Kaylee grumbled. "Even with extra layers my legs are already cold. And I swear I've got snow in my boots already."

Brooke smiled, "Sorry. The texts made it sound like time was running out though? Hopefully we're not too late as it is."

"I just hope this isn't a wild goose chase," Melanie added. "If it turns out me and Cerys wasted our day off because someone's just playing games with us, I'm not going to be very happy with them."

"You and Cerys are paying attention to any strange scents, right?" Paige asked. "And Cass, you're watching out for anything magic or enchanted?"

I nodded, "Yeah I'm watching out. If I see anything I'll let you all know."

"And we're paying attention to the scents," Melanie added. "We can't actually not do that, it's one of those things that's 'on' all the time."

Cerys commented, "Ever wonder about that? Like we can close our eyes and basically 'turn off' vision, but you can't switch off your ears or your nose. I wonder what's up with that? I think it'd be easier to fall asleep if people could close their ears like we can close our eyes."

"I'm pretty sure it's an evolutionary thing," Kaylee explained. "If you could close your ears when you slept then you wouldn't hear the big predator approaching when it came along looking for a meal. Or you couldn't hear whoever was on guard duty shouting about the danger when they spotted it."

Melanie responded, "That makes sense. Same with scent? If something nasty is lurking nearby you want to know it's there, even if you can't see it or hear it."

"Hmm," Cerys frowned. "Yeah ok it makes sense when you explain it. I thought I was onto something profound and mysterious."

We all smiled at that, and honestly the conversation helped get our minds off the fact that we were making very slow progress trudging through deep snow trying to get to a mystery location that might not have anything interesting at all.

"What do you think we'll find at the coordinates?" Nina asked, which was probably the same sort of thing we'd all been wondering on and off.

Brooke replied, "Me and Paige zoomed in on satellite photos to try and get an idea of the area. Nothing turned up though."

"The coordinates narrow down to a spot about fifteen or twenty meters radius," the tall brunette added. "Best we could tell is it's on the side of one of these hills, but the satellite image we found was taken in the summer and all we could see in that location was trees."

Cerys frowned, "So we're basically in the middle of nowhere, with nothing around but snow and trees, following a mystery lead with no idea who sent it, why, or what we might find at the end?"

"At least we're getting some fresh air and exercise," I pointed out. "And spending time with friends?"

That earned me a few eye-rolls, but nobody argued.

Then Brooke pointed out, "It's not the middle of nowhere. There's a building less than a half kilometre north-east of the target, another one about a half kilometre south-east of the target, and a popular hiking trail about a half kilometre west of it."

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"How's that not the middle of nowhere?" Melanie asked.

Our former leader shrugged, "It's a half kilometre from lots of things, and the road's even closer. So maybe it's the edge of nowhere? But it's not the middle. There's plenty of places that are way more remote than where we're going."

My girlfriend checked her phone then commented, "No cell service here. Probably because we're at the bottom of the ravine? I bet if we went back up to the top of either side we'd get service again. Considering we're so close to the ski resort and the main regional road is only about a kilometre or so to the south."

After a glance at her girlfriend's GPS Paige suggested, "Let's cut the talk for a bit ok? We're only about a hundred meters from the target, so how about we all focus on our surroundings and make sure we don't miss anything?"

"It looks like it's on the far side of that hill," Brooke added as she indicated the steep side of the ravine in front of us. "Everyone remember to watch your step and be careful."

It might have only been a hundred meters away, but it still took us like fifteen or twenty minutes to get there. Between the deep snow and the steep hill and all the trees and undergrowth and stuff it felt like forever as the seven of us slowly made our way along the route Brooke and her GPS picked.

When we did finally get to the top of the hill Kaylee confirmed that there was phone service up there, just like she suspected. Her phone lost the signal though five minutes later, as we all carefully made our way back down the other side and into another ravine that looked virtually identical to the one we just left. Actually it might have even been the same one, from the look of it the ravine kind of twisted and turned so it might have doubled back on itself.

"Ok hold up," the tall blonde announced a couple minutes later. "We're basically here. X marks the spot, somewhere around here."

We were about halfway down the side of the ravine, the top was a dozen meters above and twenty meters behind us while the bottom was over a dozen meters below and maybe two dozen meters ahead.

Melanie scowled, "Seriously? I don't see anything. Just lots of snow and trees."

"Remember we're talking about a fifteen or twenty meter circle," Paige responded. "Let's spread out a bit, but try and keep in view of each other ok? Me and Brooke will go left, Melanie and Cerys how about you look to the right. Cass Kaylee and Nina, why don't you go a bit further down the hill? If anyone sees anything call out and we'll all check it out."

There was some grumbling but we all did like she said. Me and Kaylee and Nina carefully continued making our way down towards the bottom of the ravine, while the others spread out left and right behind us.

About ten minutes later we were almost at the base of the hill when we heard Melanie call out behind us.

"Yo! Y'all wanna come check this out," the wolfgirl shouted. "We got something here."

Kaylee grumbled a bit as we turned around and slowly made our way back up the steep hill again. It took us another few minutes to catch up to the others, and when we got there we found all four of them standing around an opening in the snow.

It was like a horizontal crack in the side of the hill, with deep white snow all around and darkness inside. It looked about a half meter high at the tallest point, and about three meters wide overall.

"What is it?" Nina asked. "Something in the snow?"

Cerys shook her head, "It's a cave. The entrance is mostly buried in snow, but we can try and clear it out. It's big enough to get into."

"Or out of," Melanie pointed out. She added, "There's some faint scent in the air here that I don't recognize. It doesn't feel right though. I don't like it."

Paige pulled out her phone and used the flashlight function, then she moved into the really deep snow as she got closer to the cave entrance.

She grimaced, "Too bad we didn't bring a shovel with us, there's way too much snow to clear by hand. I can see into the cave though and Melanie's right. It's about a meter and a half high inside? Not enough to stand up straight, but we could crouch or crawl. And it's deep, like I don't know how far back into the hill it goes but it's further than the light on my phone can reach."

"Do we think this is the target?" I asked the others. "Like is this what the coordinates were pointing to?"

Brooke checked her GPS then nodded, "I think so? It's definitely in the target area. No idea what's so special about a cave though."

"It's a liminal space," Nina said quietly. "Caves are entrances and exits to the underworld."

My girlfriend agreed, "There's all sorts of historical stuff and folklore about caves. They're portals, they connect the living world to that of the dead, in prehistoric times they were spiritual places."

"There's markings in there," Paige stated. She'd got as close to the entrance as she could, she was practically laying atop the snow with her head near the entrance and her arm outstretched holding her phone just inside the cave. "I can't quite make them out, but I swear I can see something scratched into the rock. Not like animal markings, I mean man-made markings. Maybe writing?"

"Could be graffiti," Cerys pointed out. "Spray paint or something?"

Paige shook her head, "It's not paint. What I can see looks like its scratched right into the rock."

The blonde wolf replied, "It might still be -"

"Woah!" Paige suddenly yelped and almost jumped backwards from the cave, which made me and Kaylee both startle too. Then the tall brunette's shoulders slumped and she groaned "Aw crap I dropped my phone in there!"

Brooke "What happened? Did you see something?"

"I thought I saw something move," Paige grimaced. "I'm sure it was just a trick of the light though."

Melanie moved up to where our club leader had been a few moments ago, so she could get a look inside. She reported, "I see the phone. It slid down the snow, it's like two meters into the cave. I'll get it."

"Are you sure it's safe?" Nina asked. "What if there's something in there?"

The wolfgirl was already crawling through the narrow entrance as she replied, "I don't smell any fresh scents in here. No people, no animals."

"There's still a weird scent though," Cerys pointed out. "Be careful, ok?"

"I'll be fine," Melanie replied as she slid down inside the cave and out of sight. A moment later she called, "Got your phone. Hey I'm going to take pictures of these weird markings while I'm here. They're definitely not graffiti. This looks like supernatural stuff to me."

After another couple seconds the wolfgirl added, "Actually y'all should come on in here and see this? It's pretty freaky. And the cave just goes on and on, no idea how far."

Paige and Brooke exchanged a glance, then our club leader called back, "Stay there Melanie, don't go any deeper on your own. We'll be with you in a minute."

She looked at the rest of us and added, "Let's try and clear away some of this snow so we can all get in there and have a look."